Gwbert to Mwynt

It had been a bit of a sleepless night for me, Grant's processed Gas Station food had played hell with my stomach and I spent much of the night bent over with indigestion. Thankfully I saw a light on in Ray's tent and paid him the old surprise visit as I knew Ray was carrying a pile of medical goodies in his rucksack. Ray came up with the goods and gave me two tabs for gut disorder, I was right as dodgers after ten minutes and so went back to the business of looking at the sky at night. It's amazing what's flying around up there at 3 in the morning. Satellites galore and other weird things, groups of stars that were stationery would suddenly shoot off in different directions. I was begining to wonder if those tablets really were for indigestion. Eventually I fell asleep and managed to wake everyone up with my snoring. Fantasti

We were all up and ready to move on at 8.15am and so packed up the tents and rucksacks. We made a point to leave nothing behind and that gave us a bit of satisfaction as you would never have known that we'd been there. That's the way to do it. Ray and Ian started the day with a breakfast of Crisps and Cider. Each to their own I say. So off we marched onto the next leg. The walk to Mwnt was very pleasant, the weather was sunny but with a cool morning breeze blowing in from the sea. The coastline was superb and the cliffs were changing all the time when clouds would blow over and change the shadows of the cliffs' contours. Cardigan Island was now moving away from us. On the previous evening we were having a chat about the Island and I must admit, I didnt really know that much about it, it's uninhabited except for some seabirds and I imagine that the terrain must be quite similar to the land that we were walking on - a quick internet search has come up with some information about the place - it reaches a height of 171 foot and covers 38 acres. It was once home to Puffins, who were referred to as Welsh Parrots back in the 19th century and also Manx Shearwaters. Sadly no more due to a shipping accident in 1934, The Herefordshire Liner - a ship that was being towed to the scrappies, ended up running aground on the island - this event led to the Puffins and Shearwaters never ever coming back to the island - Puzzling? Not really, Rats on board the ship got on to the Island and had a field day eating everything that couldnt get away fast enough. Here's the interesting part - it took 45 years before the rat population was exterminated. Will the Puffins and Manx Shearwaters ever return?

As mentioned this walk was comparitive luxury compared to yesterday and it was only a few miles before we made the descent into the lovely Mwnt Bay. The word Mwnt in English means Motte...which means a mound forming a Castle or camp and there certainly is a big mound to the left of the beautiful beach there. Apparently this mound was the site of an unsuccesful invasion by Flemings in 1155 - the Flemings were a Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders in Belgium - so god knows what they were doing in Mwnt. Apparently there used to be a festival called Sul Coch Y Mwnt which translates as The Red Sunday of Mwnt - where the locals used to commemorate the blood that was shed there. None of that was going on when we got there, but I think the Tourist Board should get their act together and reintroduce this ancient event. It could be a money spinner. To the right of the Mound stands a lovely white church which dates back to the 12th Century - it is called Eglwys y Grog or The Church of the Holy Cross in English. Apparently this site was used by Pilgrims and Saints alike during the days of early Christianity and I must admit there is a weird aura there. Please take a look at the photos to get an idea of the place.

Anyways back to the idiots. So we made our descent and lucky for us there was a very tastefully stone built Cafe Booth at the bottom of the hill with benches and amenities. It was great to get the rucksacks off and sit down for a cup of coffee and get some water as the temperatures were again back up to the high 20's. We spent an enjoyable hour sitting there laughing about the previous day and we dined on the home made flap jacks that they had for sale. The guy running the place was a jovial chap and told us that he was a teacher that worked there during the summer holidays as he loves the place so much and he's right, Dolphins come right into the bay in the summer and lots of species of birds can be seen here. The lady who owned the place also showed up and she was another friendly soul - she was interested as to how many people we'd seen on the coastal path - the answer was none, only us.

Ray previously worked in logistics and was now going to show us how to pack a rucksack properly as Grant's was ill fitting, lopsided and top heavy, my rucksack wasnt too dissimilar. Out everything came, including the 6 cans of Redstripe that Grant was carrying - Ray told us it was madness to carry this for miles and so Grant begrudgingly donated a couple of cans to the guy in the Cafe Booth and Ian also donated him a can of cider. I was also still carrying four cans of Redstripe - so the bloke got another couple of cans. He was doing alright out of us idiots. It was actually quite interesting learning how to pack a rucksack properly and Ray did a great job of tightening things up, but really we were still carrying too much and if I ever do this again the contents of my rucksack will be the following: Tent, Kipping bag, Ceramic Mug and 1 pair of grundies. Really, thats all you need....and just hope you find a pub along the way to cater for one's spiritual needs. With our spirits high, we were now ready to boldly plod on to the next destination......Aberporth. The last few miles had been highly pleasant and we were almost looking forward to this next leg. Almost.